"Look at My Drawing!"

A certain moment will play out thousands of times over the course of a primary teacher's career. If you're a secondary teacher and have children of your own, you know it, too. It's the moment when a 4-year-old child stands in front of you, paper held in front of him, demanding, "Look at my drawing!"

Sometimes you can tell what the drawing is intended to represent; sometimes not. Either way, it's a moment of creation and relationship, a moment that both sets the stage for the educational process and defines it. The elementary education majors in my literacy methods classes treasure this moment because it makes them feel needed—a child cares what they think!—and because the child and the drawing are so cute.